BlackBerry Developer Blog » adobe airhttp://devblog.blackberry.com
Sun, 02 Aug 2015 20:24:09 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.com/http://1.gravatar.com/blavatar/9ef0a66c09615fa946c4179662398878?s=96&d=http%3A%2F%2Fs2.wp.com%2Fi%2Fbuttonw-com.png » adobe airhttp://devblog.blackberry.com
Converting AIR Apps: Online Office Hourshttp://devblog.blackberry.com/2014/04/converting-air-apps-online-office-hours/
http://devblog.blackberry.com/2014/04/converting-air-apps-online-office-hours/#commentsWed, 30 Apr 2014 18:00:23 +0000http://devblog.blackberry.com/?p=18263/ Read More]]>During Converting AIR Apps: Online Office Hours, the BlackBerry Developer Relations Team will be available to address your questions regarding the AIR to Android conversion, as well as other options like using HTML5. Bring your technical questions and we’ll have experts on hand to provide answers during an online interactive session on Wednesday, May 7 at 10:00 a.m. EST for two hours. Register here!

We worked with some of you on the forums to address the technical challenges in converting your AIR app to an Android app that will run on BlackBerry OS version 10.3.1, and want to go a step further and provide online, interactive help. Bring your questions and challenges for live, direct support.

Our goal is to give you the best support possible in converting your AIR application and we’ll work with you every step of the way.

Our fearless BlackBerry technical writing team has been hard at work over the last couple of months filling our fabulous new microsites with documentation, APIs, tutorials, and samples that make developing with the newly released BlackBerry 10.2 Gold SDK on your favorite platform a breeze.

Here are just a few of the update highlights:

Our BlackBerry 10 Adobe AIR site now features commenting, so drop us a note and pick up tips from your fellow developers.

It’s definitely worth your time to browse through all the microsites once you check out the highlights. New material is everywhere!

]]>http://devblog.blackberry.com/2013/08/weve-written-the-book-on-blackberry-10-2-development/feed/0Alex K.BlackBerry 10.2 SDK Beta Available Now!http://devblog.blackberry.com/2013/06/blackberry-10-2-sdk-beta/
http://devblog.blackberry.com/2013/06/blackberry-10-2-sdk-beta/#commentsThu, 13 Jun 2013 14:02:13 +0000http://devblog.blackberry.com/?p=15338/ Read More]]>Back at BlackBerry Jam Americas in May, we talked about the BlackBerry 10.2 SDK that would be available in June. Well, it’s June and we now have brand new updates available for you to experiment and build with. These updates include additions to the BlackBerry 10 Native SDK and both our Android and Adobe AIR run-times. We have also been up-streaming core HTML5 BlackBerry 10 support into Apache Cordova and it should be hitting an official Cordova PhoneGap release very soon!

The updates to the run-times have been ones that have had a lot of anticipation. Adobe AIR 3.5 brings with it Stage3D for accelerated OpenGL graphics and the Android run-time upgrade brings it up to Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean) compatibility. As with any beta, this is a work in progress as we work our way towards the gold release of the BlackBerry 10.2 SDK. Known issues will be outlined in the release notes for each run-time.

There are also BlackBerry 10.2 SDK OS updates for BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha B and C testing devices as well as the BlackBerry 10.2 SDK OS updates available for those who have BlackBerry Z10 and BlackBerry Q10 smartphones. All updates can be performed via the autoloader tool. Again, this is an SDK OS beta that is a trimmed down version of the BlackBerry 10.2 Operating System and is meant to provide a testing environment for you to try out the new SDK and experiment with the added capabilities that have been released. We have also released BlackBerry 10.2 SDK OS updates for the simulator. For this first release, Android 4.2 Jelly Bean testing is not yet supported in the simulator.

If you run into any issues or find bugs, please be sure to report them in the forums and the Developer Issue Tracker to make sure that we have them logged and ensure they are fixed for the BlackBerry 10.2 Gold SDK.We value your feedback as we continue to build the best mobile platform for our users.

There’s a bunch of new functionality that’s available in the beta and I encourage you to check out the roadmap pages and release notes for your favorite run-time to find out what all has been made available in this release. We have a lot more functionality scheduled to arrive in the BlackBerry 10.2 Gold SDK release as well, so I encourage you to check back often with the roadmap pages to find out more on timing and details.

So with all that said… grab the latest SDKs and development OS and have some fun coding!

Winner – Best App
Awarded to: BB Rocks

University students: Felipe Bonezi, Vinícius Araújo, Marcos Vinícius Silva and Vinícius Dias decided to combine their wide range of mobile app development experience and participate in the BlackBerry Jam Session Hackathon in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It’s a good thing they did – the team’s submission, Beegoo, was named “Best App!”

On their winning app, Beegoo…

“Many people want the convenience of a car but don’t own one. As a way to help minimize the impact of the greenhouse effect, we developed Beegoo. Beegoo is a carpooling social network where people can either offer or solicit rides with others. The main goal of the app is to minimize the need for all members of the social network to own a car. The Beegoo app has the potential to do both social and environmental good.”

On developing with Cascades++…

The BB Rocks team has a lot of experience developing for other platforms and the Beegoo app was the team’s first time working with Research In Motion. “We studied Cascades++ a couple weeks before participating in the BlackBerry Jam Session Hackathon and it was really easy to learn. We were able to leverage our past experience with C++ and Qt. Cascades™++ really does a lot of the work for you. The interface builder is really easy to understand and we developed our user interface using C++ and the Qt Modeling Language.

On participating in the Hackathon and working with Research In Motion…

“The BlackBerry Jam Session Hackathon was a great venue to learn new solutions to meet our development needs, make friends and do some great networking. We learned a new programming language and won the challenge, so there isn’t anything better than that! RIM is a company devoted to developers. We feel that the future is very promising for the BlackBerry 10 platform.”

Winner – Best Red Bull App
Awarded to: Team Red Bull A-Z

Team Red Bull A-Z features talented students and developers with experience primarily focused on web development. Their Red Bull A-Z app is actually the first mobile application anyone on the team has ever developed!

On their winning app, “Red Bull A-Z”…

“The application is essentially a message aggregator that users can launch to follow a live event. For example, if the user is watching a mixed martial arts fight, they can follow all of the real-time messages that are coming in from a variety of social networks.”

On deciding to participate in the BlackBerry Jam Session Hackathon…

“Events like this are always great for developers. The Hackathon was particularly important for us because we had never developed a mobile application, and didn’t know very much about the BlackBerry 10 platform. If we had any questions, the Research In Motion team was more than happy to help. Their feedback was also very helpful.”

On choosing to develop with the BlackBerry 10 SDK for Adobe AIR…

“One of our team members had extensive experience in web development, including HTML, CSS, JavaScript and Adobe ActionScript 3, so he set the environment one day before the event. It was a real benefit to be able to choose between a broad range of work flows, editors, SDK versions and different ways to compile and deploy the project. We used FDT and the Flex SDK to edit and compile the project. Once we did all the configurations, it was very easy to configure the other computers in the same way. We loved being able to work with Adobe AIR, especially since one of our team members had so much experience with Adobe ActionScript 3. Research In Motion clearly did its homework!”

Winner – Best Design
Awarded to: Team Voando Baixo

With limited experience in the mobile application world, Team Voando Baixo decided to participate in the BlackBerry Jam Session Hackathon in Campinas, Brazil to learn about developing for BlackBerry smartphones, meet new people, and of course, try to win an award! The team’s app, Voando Baixo, is a flight price ranker that alerts users when prices are low, based on the user’s specified price range.

On developing with HTML5/BlackBerry WebWorks SDK…

“Working with HTML5 and the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK allowed us to leverage our existing web development experience in JavaScript, CSS and HTML. This was a huge asset for us because this was our first time developing a mobile application.”

On the importance of BlackBerry 10 being an open platform…

“It’s really important that developers can draw on existing skills and experiences to develop for BlackBerry 10. This flexibility opens the door for many developers to use any number of languages to develop good mobile apps. It was surprising and stimulating for us to know that.”

On being excited about the BlackBerry 10 platform…

“Our first impression of the BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha device was that it looked really good. It was a very fast and beautiful device. We think that there is a very promising market for BlackBerry 10 and we believe it will be really successful in the long run. If you’re an app developer, try working with the BlackBerry 10 – it is flexible and easy.”

Winner – Best Game
Awarded to: Alpaca Team

As a group of artists, programmers and designers, Alpaca Team is made up of former colleagues who develop games in their free time. With more than three years of experience in mobile app development, the team won Best Game for ‘Luke at the Stars,’ a puzzle game that was originally developed for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.

On developing with the BlackBerry 10 SDK for Adobe AIR…

“We already had experience developing games in Adobe ActionScript 3, so we were happy to be able to choose a tool we were familiar with. The benefits of the BlackBerry 10 SDK extend from the development to publishing. Using the SDK was easy and simple. We were able to test our game on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, which allowed us to make modifications to the gameplay and interface and create a better user experience in a short amount of time. The SDK also helped us on versioning and publishing.”

On the importance of BlackBerry 10 being an open platform…

“The flexibility is really important to many developers. The popularity of languages and codes changes with time and it’s crucial to keep the platforms open to accommodate that. We’re using Adobe AIR today, but tomorrow, who knows? We might use HTML5, for instance, but maintain the ability to develop for both the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet as well as BlackBerry smartphones. That’s a huge advantage for developers.”

On the benefits of participating in the Hackathon…

“The Hackathon was a fantastic experience for our team. This event demonstrated to us that we could use our experiences collaboratively to create something great. Sitting in a room with so many talented developers who were willing to share their thoughts and skills was rewarding. Our game was in a very initial stage so it was very useful to hear the general feedback from the judges. The BlackBerry crew was very supportive and willing to help. If you ever have a chance to participate in an event like this and learn about the operating systems, devices and how to implement your ideas we would strongly recommend it! Our game is set to be released in mid-January!”

We’ve updated our flight arrival boards to provide statuses on all of the feature functionality delivered with the September BlackBerry® 10 development tools update. Along with this, we’ve updated some milestones leading up to the Gold SDK releases.

In my previous blog post, I mentioned that we were still considering whether or not to do another set of SDK updates after our September release and before the final Gold SDK build. Based on feedback from our developer community, we’ve decided to add another SDK release on the road to Gold. We’ve updated the SDK release schedule to reflect these needs while ensuring that there’s no impact to the first BlackBerry 10 smartphone being delivered on-time in Q1 2013. The updated SDK schedule is as follows:

User Experience tweaks to Cascades/Adobe AIR controls to account for screen resolution changes

The November release will be a gold candidate release which will contain mainly bug fixes and further stabilized SDKs for you to continue testing. This will be the SDK candidate that RIM® will continue to test and be finalized in December as the Gold SDK. Be sure to check-out the updated flight arrival boards for the details associated to the SDK of your choice.

Wait a second, you show a Keyboard device SDK Beta. What the heck is that?

In December 2012, we’ll also be releasing the necessary Beta SDKs to allow you to perform compatibility testing of your application for the first BlackBerry 10 QWERTY device. Since this new device will be a different screen resolution (720×720 vs 1280×768) than the first all-touch BlackBerry 10 device, we want to make sure you have simulators and updated SDKs to test your applications.

This SDK release will also include any UI tweaks for the Cascades™ and Adobe® AIR® controls to match the new Keyboard device screen resolution. The controls mainly affected are Action Bars, which are adjusted take up less screen real estate.

Why do I see some new items appearing in the upcoming November release?

With this current September release, we do consider the Native SDK, Adobe AIR and Android™ Runtime API complete. However, there are a few small additional items that will be coming into the November release. These are mainly small additions that will not affect the main APIs, which are now considered complete. BlackBerry® WebWorks™ is one of the exceptions that will be continuing to deliver new APIs both in the Gold Candidate and Gold release.

Where do I find these Flight Arrival Boards?

You can check out each of the Flight Arrival Boards by clicking on the “Roadmap” links on each of the websites or check out the links below:

Over the last year, our mantra has been “you ask, we act”. We announced two new initiatives last week: Built for BlackBerry® and the $10K Developer Commitment. We’ve put a lot of thought and work into both programs – with two ultimate goals in mind; a chance for you to build a successful business on BlackBerry® 10 and a great app experience for our users. BlackBerry® WebWorks™ and our BlackBerry 10 Native SDK are designed to help achieve both these goals.

Well – you asked, and we’re doing. Starting today – apps built using AIR tooling (BlackBerry 10 SDK for Adobe AIR, NME, Flash Builder) are eligible for both the Built for BlackBerry and the $10K Developer Commitment programs.

We’ve said it before – quality matters. Can’t wait to see what you build.

BlackBerry Jam Americas – Sept 25-27, San Jose CA

BlackBerry® Jam Americas 2012 is a showcase for the bold, new direction BlackBerry is heading with the upcoming BlackBerry® 10 platform. The event attracts developers and industry leaders who understand the power of BlackBerry and want to build their success with the platform. Whether you’re a Native, Web, or Android™ developer, don’t miss this opportunity to explore the powerful, game-changing BlackBerry 10 platform.

Join us, September 25-27 in San Jose, California. Register Now and use promo code DJAA45 to register for only $299.00

Developers like Retro64 Inc, Artificial Games and Innivo have brought their titles to BlackBerry® in record time. For Ido Yehieli, this meant an increase in performance of “more than 10 times compared to using Adobe AIR” with only a few small changes to his code. How was this possible?

NME is a fast, cross-platform framework for rapid game and application development. Unlike other libraries, NME does not require that you write native code. It does not use a virtual machine or a scripting language. NME uses a language called Haxe to convert your code to C++ and OpenGL, with amazing results.

BunnyMark is a popular benchmark for Flash Player. Testing on a BlackBerry® PlayBook™, Adobe AIR rendered 500 bunnies @ 11 FPS. Using NME, the same device rendered an astonishing 5250 bunnies @ 30 FPS. NME applications are significantly faster than AIR (with or without Stage3D) and are comparable to applications built with other native frameworks.

Help Mr Nibbles solve devious puzzles and become the first hamster to enter orbit!

In addition to native, NME also supports publishing for Flash and beta support for HTML5. This offers a unique opportunity to create games that are optimized for the web, desktop and mobile, using a single codebase.

This flexibility also enables support for BlackBerry OS 6 and 7 devices. Since they are unable to run native C/C++ applications, they can be supported using HTML5, Apache Cordova and BlackBerry® WebWorks™.

It is simple to build a game using NME. For anyone who already knows Flash, NME is an instant transition. Other developers will find that the API and language are still easy to learn.

Haxe shares roots with ECMAScript languages like Actionscript and Javascript, but supports more features such as conditional compilation, type inference, typedefs, enums, generics, iterators and compiler macros. Haxe also has a vibrant and helpful developer community.

“I think making this game in Haxe/NME is about as inspired as I’ve been as a developer for a long time. Really exciting.” – Andreas Rønning

Many popular libraries are available for NME, like Flixel, HaxePunk, awe6, Nape and Box2D. NME also supports native C/C++ extensions.

If you have more questions about Haxe or NME, or would like to learn more about how to build your own native BlackBerry games using the framework, let us know with your comments!

BlackBerry Jam Americas – Sept 25-27, San Jose CA

BlackBerry® Jam Americas 2012 is a showcase for the bold, new direction BlackBerry is heading with the upcoming BlackBerry® 10 platform. The event attracts developers and industry leaders who understand the power of BlackBerry and want to build their success with the platform. Whether you’re a Native, Web, or Android™ developer, don’t miss this opportunity to explore the powerful, game-changing BlackBerry 10 platform.

Join us, September 25-27 in San Jose, California. Register Now and use promo code DJAA45 to register for only $299.00

When Javier D’Accorso learned about the Desafío BlackBerry contest last March, the longtime developer decided to participate and develop an application for the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet. After partnering with graphic designer Damian Hadyi, D’Accorso leveraged Adobe AIR to develop an interactive children’s storybook application that has become popular in both his native Argentina as well as around the world.

D’Accorso talked about the benefits of receiving ongoing support from the RIM® team in Argentina, the speed and straightforward nature of developing for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, and the features he was able to easily integrate into the app.

Q: How important is the support you’ve received from the RIM team in Argentina?

Javier: BlackBerry smartphones are extremely popular in Argentina and as a result there is a great group of BlackBerry developers and forums in the country. It’s important in any community to have the opportunity to ask questions, learn from others and be recognized for what you do. RIM has done a wonderful job enabling that exchange of information.

I actually developed the Perico Pirata children’s storybook application for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet as part of the ‘Desafío BlackBerry’ challenge. A really important moment in the development process was my participation in the Buenos Aires Hackathon. I interacted with industry experts and formed ongoing relationships with a number of RIM gurus, who I continue to work with. Thanks to their experience and rapid responses, I’ve been able to incorporate lots of functionality into the application. This level of personal interaction is something you don’t find working with other platforms, where you need to look through dozens of forums to get any answers.

Javier: My partner and I combined storybook elements with the powerful technology of the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet and quickly saw how we could make something simple yet appealing. I analyzed the distinct programming languages and decided to develop using Adobe AIR, which was an excellent decision. It was amazing just how easy it was to implement all of our ideas. I barely had to do anything to make a compilation for the BlackBerry PlayBook and the animation ran smoothly and quickly. I was extremely impressed by the hardware on the BlackBerry PlayBook – the performance and graphics were incredible and it was very easy to incorporate the level of interaction that we wanted.

The Perico Pirata children’s storybook application took us about a month to develop. That’s including the last two weeks, which was time that we used to gather feedback from having the app tested by family and friends. I believe that anyone working with Flash on the web, or with another mobile platform, should try developing for the PlayBook because it’s so easy.

Q: What are some of the features that you’ve been able to incorporate into the application?

Javier: We heard from parents who tried the app and they agreed that it would be great to be able to interact with the microphone. I was able to tweak the functionality so the user could speak to the characters in the application and hear their voices as they responded. I checked online to learn how to make the appropriate changes in Adobe AIR and we had them done within a day or so. I was also impressed with how easy it was to integrate the camera. After referring to the available documentation, the app had full, camera functionality.

Q: Do you plan on developing games for the BlackBerry 10 platform?

Javier: Absolutely. There are a few children’s games I’ve worked on in conjunction with some big entertainment and production companies that I would love to bring onto the BlackBerry 10 platform. I’ve been researching the BlackBerry 10 SDK for Adobe AIR and I’m excited for the great functionality that the new platform will offer. My experience developing for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet has been so straightforward and the performance has been incredible. I think this next stage will be just as simple and powerful.

Beta 2 of the BlackBerry® 10 SDK for Adobe® AIR® now has support for participating in the BlackBerry 10 Invoke Framework. You can find all of the APIs in the QNXDevice.ane and they are all documented.

Invoking a Application

By leveraging the Invoke API, you can invoke virtually any other application on the BlackBerry® smartphone through some simple API call, where you’ll set a parameter for the app you want to invoke and then pass in any parameters that application is expecting. A typical example would be that your application can invoke the BlackBerry® Maps application when it comes across an address. InvokeManager.invoke() will invoke an application.

When the application has been successfully invoked, an InvokeEvent.INVOKE_TARGET event will be dispatched. If there was an error invoking the target, an ErrorEvent.ERROR event will be dispatched. Please refer to the following Knowledge Base article for details on some known issues which will be addressed in an upcoming patch.

Invoking a Viewer

InvokeManager.invokeViewer() will invoke a viewer. A Viewer class is returned and is used to communicate with the viewer.

Let’s say you have an image viewer application and you want to invoke it from the main application you’re working on. In the main application, you want to pass the image file that the imager viewer app will open when invoked.

Below is a sample of how you can invoke a viewer and wait for it to be created. This example assumes that you have created the viewerRequest object with the correct data for your viewer.

Making your Application an Invoke Handler

If you are developing an application that can be invoked by another application, you will want to add a listener for the invoke event at the very start of your application. These should be the first lines of your application.
Once you have received the invoke event, you can check the startup mode and get the data that you were invoked with.
Below is a sample of how you would accomplish this:

Query a list of targets

You can also query a list of targets or viewers on the device by calling the InvokeManager.queryTargets() method. At some point in the future, this will make a pop-up list in your application that will allow users to select items from the list. For now, it returns the results and it is up to you to use those values in your invoke() and invokeViewer() calls.

InvokeEvent

No matter how your application is started, you will receive an InvokeEvent dispatched by the InvokeManager. In order to determine how your app was started, you can check the InvokeManager.startupMode in your InvokeEvent handler. So, your application would look something like the following, assuming that your application can be launched as a target and a viewer:

Closing a Viewer

When an application wishes to close a viewer that it has created, it can simply call the Viewer.dispose() method. This will cause the viewer to be removed immediately.

A viewer can request to be closed by the application and should never actually attempt to close itself directly. Viewers can call the InvokeManager.requestViewerClose() method. This will send a message to the application requesting that it be closed. The Viewer instance in the application will dispatch a ViewerEvent.VIEWER_CLOSE_REQUEST event. When application receives this event, it should call the dispose() method on the viewer to close it. The reason this doesn’t happen automatically is so that applications can transition viewers out before removing them. We may make this a bit more automated in the future, and we’ll let you know when this happens.

Viewer message relay

Viewers can send data to applications using the InvokeManager.viewerSendMessage() method. The Viewer instance will then dispatch ViewerEvent.VIEWER_MESSAGE events with the message and data properties set to what was passed into the viewerSendMessage(). Here is an example of how you would use this:

I’ve spent many hours talking to members of our developer community both online and in person at our conferences and meet-ups, and I know you’re excited by these tools. Last week, I attended my first BlackBerry® 10 Jam in Toronto and I was blown away by the energy of the developers in attendance.

What to expect in this first Beta

The BlackBerry 10 SDKs don’t jump to awesomeness in their first iteration; it’s an evolution to greatness. In this first Beta we’ve provided the foundational building blocks and a great start for developers to see where we’re heading. The SDKs allow you to create the BlackBerry 10 user experience with core controls and a great application framework to build the necessities of your application around networking, storage and other foundational pieces. It’s not like we’re starting from scratch; all the functionality provided in the SDKs for the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet is also available.

We’ve also made sure that the core UI controls in the Adobe® AIR® runtime have been re-skinned to provide the BlackBerry 10 look and feel along with updating bbUI.js for WebWorks developers to provide the same BlackBerry 10 experience as you find in Cascades™.

Did you just say “first Beta” – and what does it mean to evolve?

We’ll be providing a series of Beta releases on the road to the gold BlackBerry 10 SDK. I want to make sure I set expectations with the community on how we’re approaching the beta cycle. As we evolve each of the SDKs, it means that on top of adding functionality we may need to make changes to functionality released in a previous beta. We are making sure that we examine all the possible angles before we make changes that could affect your application’s code during the Beta and are trying to minimize these changes as much as possible. However, there are times when we’ll have to make changes to ensure that we have solid footings for moving forward with follow up releases. As we move closer to gold, our goal is to make sure that changes in the SDK do not affect compatibility with your code.

What about PIM, BBM, Share and Invocation Framework APIs?

RIM has a strong heritage in delivering fantastic deep integration into the core BlackBerry experience and providing a differentiating factor for your application on the platform, and this will continue with BlackBerry 10. As we evolve the BlackBerry 10 SDKs, these deep integration APIs will be made available, but they aren’t quite ready for 3rd party consumption yet.

These APIs are still seeing refactoring as we move through all the use cases of our core applications. We want to ensure that both our core apps are using the same APIs as 3rd party developers and that the APIs see minimal changes after they are made available in a Beta.

I won’t list all of the APIs that are coming, but I’ll list the hot topics where I usually get inquiries:

BBM™

PIM (Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, Notes)

Messages/Email

NFC

Share/Invoke Framework

Adding your menu item to an existing app

Invoking and being invoked by another app

String pattern registry

Geocoding & reverse geocoding

Bluetooth®

All these and more will be coming in follow-up Beta releases, so make sure you grab the SDKs and start building the core of your application to ensure that you’re ready to integrate these features as soon as they’re available!

In addition to developing applications with Adobe® Flash® Builder®, the BlackBerry® 10 SDK beta for Adobe® AIR® also gives you the option to integrate with FDT 5. FDT 5 is a flexible development toolkit in Eclipse™ for interactive developers. In my personal experience, FDT has a great work flow. The advanced refactoring capabilities, ASDoc support, SWF Bridge, and Haxe support make this a great package.

FDT 5 comes in 2 different versions, FDT 5 Free, and FDT 5 Max. FDT 5 Max has additional features that are unavailable in the free version but requires a license. More information on the different versions can be found on the FDT 5 website.

Before installing the BlackBerry 10 SDK beta for Adobe AIR make sure that FDT 5 is installed. While installing the SDK you will be able to select Powerflasher’s FDT during the Integration Choice step. If you’ve already installed the SDK you can simply rerun the setup wizard.

There is a guide for creating your first application in FDT for BlackBerry 10 located in the documentation. If you need any help getting started or have any questions, please don’t hesitate to drop by the Adobe AIR development forum.

]]>http://devblog.blackberry.com/2012/06/develope-adobe-air-applications-for-blackberry-10-with-powerflashers-fdt-5/feed/0dustinmalikfdtwizardAIR Porting: PlayBook to BlackBerry 10http://devblog.blackberry.com/2012/06/adobe-air-porting-blackberry-10/
http://devblog.blackberry.com/2012/06/adobe-air-porting-blackberry-10/#commentsThu, 07 Jun 2012 14:01:46 +0000http://devblog.blackberry.com/?p=9710]]>With the release of the BlackBerry® 10 Adobe® AIR® SDK Beta, I thought it might be time to go back and see how much work it would be to take the sample app I wrote last year and get it going on a BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha. I was all set to spend the day coding and tweaking and working on a big long guide. Then I loaded the old build onto my device and…well, it basically worked already:

Turns out I had locked the app’s orientation, but neglected to actually specify which orientation it should be locked to. On the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet it was fine, since the default was landscape and that’s what I wanted, but the Blackberry 10 Dev Alpha is a portrait device. A quick change to add <aspectRatio>landscape</aspectRatio> to my app.xml (not even the code!), and I’m done.

Since I had specified the dimensions of the SWF in my main action script file, I didn’t even need to change any of the sizes of the menus or anything (though I probably should have just made everything scale dynamically in the first place). Either way, it only took me a couple minutes to sort out, and all I did was fix a legitimate bug. I didn’t even have to use the BlackBerry 10 SDK to compile it, since I wasn’t using any new APIs. So if you already have an Adobe AIR app, you are probably good to go. Congratulations on writing your first app for BlackBerry 10!

]]>http://devblog.blackberry.com/2012/06/adobe-air-porting-blackberry-10/feed/0paulbe1TITLE_IMAGEHey conference and event organizers, the Talk Clock App is here for youhttp://devblog.blackberry.com/2012/05/conference_app/
http://devblog.blackberry.com/2012/05/conference_app/#commentsWed, 23 May 2012 20:48:57 +0000http://devblog.blackberry.com/?p=9496/ Read More]]>(Editor’s note: Originally published on http://dborba.com/?p=166. Demian built and released this app prior to joining the Developer Evangelist team.)

In March of 2012 I set the last project for Action Creations under my administration, called “Talk Clock”, to have a very polished design, focused on being very functional. After tons of prototypes and usability tests, it’s finally ready! And I’m proud to show it to you now:

As event organizer, you can have someone holding the tablet (showing it to the speaker) so he/she can see the time left and see your messages. During the raffle, you can plug the tablet to the projector via HDMI and show its screen to the whole audience.

The Talk Clock App is available only for the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ (and soon BlackBerry 10 smartphones) and it can be found here. Hope you enjoy it!

]]>http://devblog.blackberry.com/2012/05/conference_app/feed/0dborbarimBlackBerry 10 WebWorks SDK Released!http://devblog.blackberry.com/2012/05/blackberry-10-webworks-sdk/
http://devblog.blackberry.com/2012/05/blackberry-10-webworks-sdk/#commentsTue, 01 May 2012 13:41:28 +0000http://devblog.blackberry.com/?p=9131]]>We are super excited to announce that the BlackBerry® 10 WebWorks™ SDK is now available for download! This is the first of many Beta releases to come over the summer as we head towards the official release of the BlackBerry 10 WebWorks SDK. Eager web application developers should head right to the developer site, download the SDK, and see how we are continuing to provide a best-in-class web developer platform for BlackBerry 10.

The BlackBerry 10 WebWorks SDK allows web developers to create first class BlackBerry applications using familiar web technologies such as HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript®, and extend their application with deep integration into the full device platform. It is the evolution of the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK, built on the foundations of the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK for smartphones and the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK for Tablet OS.

First introduced on the BlackBerry® 5 OS and supported on all OS versions and devices since, BlackBerry WebWorks allows a developer to package their web content into the native application format, leveraging all the benefits of the BlackBerry platform including security and distribution through the BlackBerry App World™ storefront. With the WebKit-based HTML5 browser environment provided by the platform, BlackBerry WebWorks developers have full access to many powerful HTML5 APIs and CSS3. Further, BlackBerry WebWorks provides a set of JavaScript APIs that allow the developer to extend their web content out of the browser with platform functionality such as BlackBerry® Messenger SDK, Payment Service, PIM (email, contacts, and calendars), file access, and so on.

For the BlackBerry smartphone, the BlackBerry WebWorks APIs were built on the native Java platform, and for Tablet OS, on top of the Adobe® AIR® SDK. With BlackBerry 10, it was obvious that BlackBerry WebWorks needed to leverage the full power of the new BlackBerry 10 Native platform built on C/C++ and Cascades™. This gave us an opportunity to look at BlackBerry WebWorks with fresh eyes and determine the best route forward. Let’s take a look at the different pieces that make up BlackBerry WebWorks and how we have been able to improve on the platform with the power of BlackBerry 10.

The Packager

This is the piece of the SDK that takes you application content and packages it up into a .BAR file for distribution in BlackBerry App World™, and is the file that is installed onto the device. For BlackBerry OS and Tablet OS, the packager was implemented in Java, which required the developer to have the JDK installed on their machine. For BlackBerry 10 WebWorks SDK, we have re-implemented the packager in pure JavaScript, which runs in an instance of Node.js included with the SDK. BlackBerry WebWorks developers have minimal external dependencies required to get their development environment setup.

One thing to note is that the packager now creates two binary outputs, one for the device and one to be used in the BlackBerry 10 simulator. This is because the BlackBerry WebWorks runtime is now backed by the native platform, and there are different instruction sets for the OS on desktop environments versus the device platform.

The Framework

The framework is the code that wraps around your web content, and is run on the device in order to orchestrate the platform and provide your runtime environment. For BlackBerry OS, the framework was in Java, and for Tablet OS it was Adobe AIR. Similar to the packager, and enabled by the underlying platform providing in essence a JavaScript runtime environment, we have re-written the framework in JavaScript.

Since the framework is in JavaScript, developers will need to include this JavaScript code into their web content for their application. Just add a very simple script tag to all your pages:

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”webworks.js”></script>

Webworks.js is the framework code that handles all of the BlackBerry WebWorks whitelisting logic and injection of allowed APIs for the current domain into the current page. The webworks.js file is included in the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK in the framework\clientfiles directory and should be copied into your application content.

Since script loading can occur asynchronously, we have provided an event that you must listen to before accessing any BlackBerry WebWorks APIs. The framework will trigger this event once it is done initializing the BlackBerry WebWorks framework and APIs. Here is an example of the webworks script file definition and webworksready event in action:

While the webworks.js file did not exist and is not required for BlackBerry OS or Tablet OS WebWorks SDKs, you can leave the script inclusion line in your application even on these platforms. If your application is not running on the BlackBerry 10 platform, the webworksready event will fire almost right away, and none of the rest of the BlackBerry 10 framework logic will execute; your app will run in the context of the standard BlackBerry OS and Tablet OS WebWorks frameworks.

Config.xml

For this first Beta of the BlackBerry 10 WebWorks SDK, we have implemented most of the existing elements of the configuration document. There are a few elements that will come in the future along with some new additions required to support some new BlackBerry 10 features. Not to worry if you use new elements or have elements that are not yet supported in BlackBerry 10 WebWorks, as the packagers for all platforms will ignore elements they don’t recognize. Please check the documentation for details on the config document.

APIs

APIs for BlackBerry WebWorks have two components to them: JavaScript that runs in the browser environment, and a “native” component that interfaces with the rest of the platform, allowing for the deep integration that provides the full power of BlackBerry WebWorks. Again: Java for smartphones, Adobe AIR for BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablets. For BlackBerry 10, of course, native is C/C++. So we have to re-implement all the APIs, and will be delivering them incrementally with Beta refreshes over the summer.

In this initial Beta release, we have been able to provide a core sub-set of the full WebWorks API, which is documented on the BlackBerry HTML 5 site, including Identity, Application and App events, System and system events. On a monthly cadence, we will be releasing new Beta bundles of BlackBerry WebWorks with net new APIs, such as Push, File and File Transfer, Audio/Video Capture, etc.

Apache Cordova

The nature of HTML5 is that it is prevalent on most platforms and devices. Apache Cordova (which is the basis of the well-known PhoneGap) is an industry-leading cross-platform framework very similar to BlackBerry WebWorks. We are striving to bring BlackBerry WebWorks and Cordova closer together, and are actively part of the Cordova open source project providing contributions. To begin down this road, we are aligning some of our BlackBerry 10 WebWorks API signatures with Cordova API signatures. Existing WebWorks applications may require some refactoring to target BlackBerry 10, but Cordova/PhoneGap is supported on BlackBerry OS and Tablet OS, so you can take advantage of these APIs on older operating systems.

For example, event APIs have changed. For BlackBerry smartphones or Tablet OS, if you wanted to listen for battery level changes, you would do something like this:

The “blackberry.event” feature id would be used in your config.xml file for whitelisting purposes. You will notice that, if you replaced “blackberry.event” with “document” or “window”, you have the Cordova/PhoneGap API signature.

Please check out the BlackBerry WebWorks development site to learn more about how you can be part of the first wave of applications for the BlackBerry 10 OS by leveraging your web technology skills, while continuing to target our over 75 million smartphone subscribers and BlackBerry PlayBook tablet users.

If you’ve developed – or are currently developing – a BlackBerry® WebWorks™, Adobe® AIR®, or Native Gaming app for the BlackBerry® platform, bring your app to AppCircus at BlackBerry® 10 Jam and work with RIM experts on-site to port it to the BlackBerry 10 platform. You could win $25,000 to see your favorite bands! (Winners will have up to a year to use the prize.) In order to participate in the contest, ensure you register your application with AppCircus by April 29th and attend BlackBerry 10 Jam in Orlando! If you enter now, you can get some tips for building and pitching to help you prepare for the event at BlackBerry 10 Jam.

After you’ve had a chance to tweak your apps for BlackBerry 10, you’ll pitch your app to a panel of RIM and AppCircus judges where the top three applications from each category – BlackBerry WebWorks, Adobe AIR and Native Gaming – will move on to the finals. AppCircus and RIM experts will be on hand to help these finalists perfect their presentation and apps in preparation for the finals. Finalists have a three-minute pitch and two-minute question and answer on stage, and winners are chosen by a jury. One winner in each of the three categories will receive the grand prize. Each grand prize is worth up to $25,000 USD for you and your friends to see your favorite bands throughout the year!

The prize package includes:

$10,000 USD cash award to purchase concert tickets and to be used as spending money for you and your friends

$15,000 USD Travel Voucher (booked through RIM’s agent) to purchase airline tickets, hotel reservations and ground transportation for you and your friends to attend the concerts in cities where you’ve purchased concert tickets

We knew developers were excited about our latest BlackBerry® PlayBook™ offer for Android™ developers when we announced it two weeks ago. You asked that Native C/C++, HTML5, Adobe® AIR®, and Qt developers have a chance to participate and we answered by opening the offer to all developers.

Today was going to be the deadline for the offer – but due to the overwhelming interest in the offer, we’re extending it one more time. How much interest? There have been over 1,500 app submissions as of last Friday and over 6,600 new developers registered in the BlackBerry App World™ storefront. We have teams working around the clock to approve vendor registrations and app submissions. Because of the high demand, approvals are taking longer than normal – we appreciate your patience.

To help speed up the approval process of your application, we strongly recommend the following:

Before submitting your application to BlackBerry App World, please make sure to remove all mention of the word “Android” from your application – both in the application description and the application itself.

Please remove all links to Android Marketplace from within your application.

When submitting your Android application to BlackBerry App World, please make sure to select a minimum OS of 2.0.

All vendors (new and existing) now have until 11:59 PM EST on March 2, 2012 to submit your application to BlackBerry App World. Check out our offer FAQ and we’ll be updating the official terms & conditions later today.

There has been a lot of excitement today about the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet developer promotion for Android™ developers, as tweeted by Alec Saunders, VP Developer Relations. Further details about the promotion will be posted on our developer site as soon as possible, but the plan is to provide one free 16GB BlackBerry PlayBook tablet to every registered BlackBerry App World™ vendor who converts their Android app for use on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet and submits it to BlackBerry App World between February 2, 2012 and February 13, 2012. How easy is it to bring your Android app to BlackBerry PlayBook tablet? Check out our Android tools site to see!

To help speed up the approval process of your application, we strongly recommend the following:

Before submitting your application to BlackBerry App World, please make sure to remove all mention of the word “Android” from your application – both in the application description and the application itself.

Please remove all links to Android Marketplace from within your application.

When submitting your Android application to BlackBerry App World, please make sure to select a minimum OS of 2.0.

The Android app needs to be ported and submitted prior to the deadline to be eligible for the offer. The applications will need to meet the BlackBerry App World Vendor Guidelines, and there will of course be some terms and conditions that are principally designed to prevent abuse of the promotion. We’ll keep you posted. Now get building those apps!

[Updated: Friday February 3, 2012 @ 4:00 PM]

Wow, BlackBerry developer community! You certainly weren’t shy about wanting in on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet offer for apps submitted to BlackBerry App World between now and February 13. And you know what? We are in the year of “Being Bold”, and such an outpouring of interest from you should be rewarded! We’re opening this offer to any app – BlackBerry® WebWorks™, Native, Adobe® AIRv, and Android. Same deadline of February 13 applies. There are some terms and conditions, but they’re there to protect you and your content. We look forward to your submissions!

]]>http://devblog.blackberry.com/2012/02/latest-blackberry-playbook-tablet-offer-for-android-developers/feed/0Alex K.PlayBookHere’s a gift you can open early – BlackBerry PlayBook 2.0 Beta and NDK Updateshttp://devblog.blackberry.com/2011/12/blackberry-playbook-2-0-beta-ndk-updates/
http://devblog.blackberry.com/2011/12/blackberry-playbook-2-0-beta-ndk-updates/#commentsFri, 23 Dec 2011 15:39:10 +0000http://devblog.blackberry.com/?p=8179/ Read More]]>Patrick is our NDK evangelist here at Research In Motion® (RIM®) – and he has some great news on BlackBerry® PlayBook™ 2.0 Beta and NDK updates. Patrick will be back in the new year as a member of the Dev Blog team! – Ed.

We’re well into the holiday season, and Santa and his elves are busy in their workshop making sure all the good boys and girls have fun and exciting presents to open. What about the elves here at RIM? Well, I’m happy to tell you that the hardworking teams have version of the BlackBerry® Native SDK 2.0 for Tablet OS ready for you now! I know, I know…the title’s a mouthful but, like a festive holiday meal, the mouthful is worth it!

Continuing on the success we saw with our launch of the BlackBerry Native SDK for Tablet OS at BlackBerry® DevCon Americas this fall and the release of an initial beta for the BlackBerry Native SDK 2.0, the second beta release contains:

A streamlined deployment setup wizard designed to help with the setup of your development environment and to provide better feedback when there are issues in the process. It also leverages the automatic device detection feature to help you set up your targets.

Adobe® AIR Native Extension (ANE) support – New workflows have been added to the IDE to help you build and debug native extensions. This includes an ANE project type that works with the Adobe command line tools to generate ANEs. In addition, the new ANE launch configurations helps you debug your ANE on the device.

Per project SDK support – You may now configure your BlackBerry Native SDK on a per-project basis. This allows you to have projects in your workspace build against different versions of the device. For example, you could have one project in your space build against the latest release BlackBerry Native SDK (1.0.8) and another build against the latest developer SDK (2.0 DR2). Previously, all projects in your workspace built against the same BlackBerry Native SDK.

We continue to evolve and improve the developer experience on the BlackBerry platform. In that same vein, we have produced a BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet OS 2.0 beta 2 (DR2) for our native BlackBerry Native SDK users. Be sure to white list your device’s PIN so that you can download the DR2 release (Developer Release beta 2) of the BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet OS.

As mentioned in the list above, the BlackBerry Native SDK 2.0 for Tablet OS 2.0 beta includes the Scoreloop SDK 1.0 beta 2 release – the next-generation technology that enables mobile social gaming. It lets you integrate the Scoreloop SDK’s set of social gaming features into your games.

The Scoreloop SDK is a fully customizable SDK that is designed to allow you to seamlessly integrate the Scoreloop SDK’s features into your games while maintaining the look and feel of your applications throughout. The social features are modular, so you can integrate as many or as few social features as you want.

Some of the features currently available include:

User profiles

Leaderboards

Challenges

Awards and achievement

It’s a great time to be developing for the BlackBerry platform!

On that note, happy holidays to everyone. Thank you for your continued efforts, and I look forward to sharing more exciting news with you in the new year. I’ll be showing up at as many meetups, Mobile Mondays, events, conferences, and developer gatherings as possible. If you see me, come say hi, and let me know how I can help you succeed in your mobile development challenges.

The market for BlackBerry® platform apps in Latin America is bigger than ever, and we know this is exciting work. That’s why this year’s BlackBerry® DevCon Americas 2011 is focused on helping Latin American developers do great things and learn more about developing for the BlackBerry platform (in Spanish, too!).

This year’s sessions are diverse – check out the full session catalog to see everything that will be covered, including the 14 sessions that will be available in Spanish. These sessions will be presented by top Research In Motion® (RIM®) experts, special guest speaker and Visionary Game Developer Jane McGonigal, and community speakers from Assanka and Crackberry.com. You will hear from companies active in the Latin American developer community, including Action Creations, Activ, Eudaimonia, Infocket, Sensebyte Mobile, and [Q] Interactiva.

Aside from the sessions, you can also bring your questions to the Ask the Experts area, where RIM experts will be on hand specifically for the Latin America region. In this area, you’ll also be able to get some valuable input from your fellow attendees.

If it’s hands-on work you’re looking for, sign up for training sessions on using Adobe® Flex®, Adobe® AIR®, and BlackBerry® WebWorks™ to learn how to build apps for the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet. Both one-day courses are offered on Monday, October 17 from 9 AM to 5 PM and cost $499 USD each.

Make sure you don’t miss out on everything BlackBerry DevCon Americas 2011 has to offer for Latin American developers – register now! (If you need to tell your boss why you should attend, we’ve made it easy by summarizing it all with this Convince Your Boss Letter written in Spanish!)